Believe the Lie
by sewnbythecolourofgreen
Summary: What if Melissa was abducted instead of Samantha?
1. Prologue

_November 27 1978_

"You know, Mom would kill you if she knew you were going out tonight." Dana said.

"Good thing she won't find out." Melissa replied, fixing her hair. "You're not going to tell her, are you?"

"No!" Though maybe worth a visit to confessional. As she got older, Dana had been lying on her sister's behalf more and more often.

"Good. Then give me a hand with my necklace, will you? The clasp's stuck."

"I don't understand how you can ever take that thing off." Dana mused as she brushed the loose strands of hair away from her sister's neck. Melissa had been wearing it less and less lately, while Dana had been promised one on her sixteenth birthday.

"When you're older you'll understand. Religion… you're born into it. But no one should choose what you believe except you." Melissa turned to face her sister. "James - that's who I'm going to see tonight - he's always telling me about dreams and auras and Dana, when I'm around him I really believe what he's saying. He makes sense to me. When I'm in church the words just float up over my head. That," She said, pointing to the gold cross now in her sister's hand, "Is someone else's belief. Not mine."

"Dad's embarrassed of you." Dana said matter-of-factly.

The nightstand started to shake, but neither of them noticed.

"What are you talking about?"

"I mean your boyfriends and when you sneak out and when you say you aren't Catholic. Mom too. They're embarrassed of you, of what their friends and our neighbors all must think of you."

"Dana this is my life."

"Missy-"

The nightstand fell over. The whole house now seemed to be shuddering, and a bright light appeared in the window, drawing closer and closer to the house.

The window opened. The light was blinding, and Dana was unable to move.

"Dana!" Melissa yelled. "Dana!"

When the light finally subsided, Dana was alone in the room. "Missy! Missy!" she called. There was no answer.

She was holding her sister's gold cross necklace.


	2. Chapter One

_FBI Headquarters, Washington DC_

_March 7, 1992_

Mulder wasn't happy. He resented his new assignment, resented everything that had happened in the past month. What's more, his new partner was late. Cautiously, he tried the door to her basement office, finding it unlocked. Sitting in the chair in front of her desk, he allowed his mind to wander, replaying the events of that morning…

_"Agent Mulder, thank you for coming on such short notice. Please…" Scott Blevins gestured for him to sit down. "Are you familiar with an Agent named Dana Scully."_

_Mulder glanced around uneasily before answering. Three other agents seemed excessive for this meeting. Blevins, the agent sitting next to him, and a man standing in the corner with a cigarette between his lips. "Yes Sir. By reputation."_

_The corner of the smoking man's mouth twitched._

_"What reputation?" Blevins asked._

_"From working in Violent Crimes. She was recruited out of medical school to the FBI. They had a nickname for her in the academy. The Ice Queen."_

_"Did the two of you ever work together when you were assigned to Violent Crimes?"_

_"No sir."_

_The smoking man crossed, then uncrossed his legs, all the while leaning against the filing cabinet._

_"Lately Agent Scully has reopened another division: The X Files. Are you familiar with them as well?"_

_"I believe they have something to do with unexplained phenomena."_

_"More or less. The reason you are here, Agent Mulder, is we want you to assist Agent Scully in these investigations. You will be expected to write field reports to us concerning your opinions on the validity of the work as well as Agent Scully's investigation procedures and any psychological observations you may have."_

_"Am I correct in understanding that you want me to profile Agent Scully?"_

_The smoking man took another drag from his cigarette._

_"Agent Mulder, while we trust your profiling abilities in light of recent events I'm sure you can understand our wish to keep you out of Bureau mainstream projects for a while._

_They were burying him. They wanted to hide him away after what had happened._

_"It's this assignment or an unpaid suspension." Scott Blevins said. "Take your pick, Agent."_

Mulder was roused back to reality by the sound of footsteps. Ah well, he thought, might as well make an entrance.

"Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted."

"Well I guess that makes two of us." his new partner replied, stepping into the room and approaching him with an outstretched hand. "Dana Scully."

"Fox Mulder. I've been assigned to work with you."

"I can't imagine this was your first choice of division, Agent Mulder."

"To say I had a choice in the matter would be a gross exaggeration."

"Imagine that." She threw him a wry smile.

"That doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to working with you. Your reputation precedes you, Mrs. Spooky. What I am interested in is what your background check turned up on me."

"Who says I ran a background check?" she asked.

"Either you did or you're not half as paranoid as they say."

"I had my guys run a quick check." She had guys? "Oxford-educated psychologist, " She looked up at him. "What happened? Who'd you piss off?"

"I took a long vacation." he mumbled.

She's hit a nerve, and he'd brushed it off, hoping she didn't notice. The same thing happened a few minutes later, when she asked if he believed in aliens, but when he said no he honestly couldn't tell if she saw how much the question bothered him.

Thoughts were running through his head, analysing every word out of her mouth. He was good at this. Profiling. Smart, assertive, and a little too determined to prove her own beliefs. There was a small smile on Mulder's face as he left the room, with a trip to Oregon planned for the next day. He wasn't sure why.

_Bellefleur, Oregon_

"I want you to look at something."

"Come on in." Mulder ushered his partner through the doorway, waiting for a sarcastic comment, a joke, from her mouth, his, anything to break the tension thick in the air.

Scully pulled off her robe, craning her neck to look at the marks.

"What are they? Mulder, what are they?"

"Mosquito bites." he replied, standing up.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah." He was pulled into an unexpected hug. "You're shaking." He couldn't help but pity her, just a little. She wanted his respect as badly as he wanted hers, and after jumping to such a conclusion with no evidence, she felt that she'd lost it.

She hadn't.

"I was fifteen. My sister was sixteen. The two of us were home alone one night and she… just disappeared. There was never any indication of what happened. Nothing to give us any hope."

"You never found her."

"There was talk… there was always talk about my sister. You know, parties, boys, that kind of thing. She was a little wild. But after she disappeared… people would say terrible things about her, that run away and… worse things. But I was there. That's not what happened." She shook her head. "I don't even know why I'm telling you all this. You must know this already; you're a part of that agenda."

Mulder kneeled on the floor, eyes level with her on the bed. "Scully, I'm not a part of any agenda. You've got to trust me."

"Mulder, listen." she said with increasing urgency. "In the memories recovered by my hypnosis, I know that that night my sister was taken I witnessed a bright light, and sensed a presence in the room. Mulder-"

"Hang on." he picked up the ringing phone. "What? Who is this?That was some woman… She just said Peggy O'Dell died."

_Mulder's Apartment_

_11:21 AM_

The thoughts were racing through his head and he couldn't stop them.

_Not real not real not real. You've fallen for this twice already. Aliens aren't real. Ghosts aren't real. This stuff isn't real. __It's just your mind playing tricks on you._

Who could possibly be calling him at this hour?

He knew exactly who.

"Hello?"

"Mulder? It's me. I just got off the phone with the DA's office in Raymond County. There's no case file on Billy Miles. All of the records are gone. There's no evidence of anything."

"Scully, can we do this tomorrow?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry, I didn't think- I forgot you might be asleep. I just wanted to say…" she trailed off.

"Scully?"

"I'm always around, if you need me. Or if you want to talk. Okay?"

"Okay."

She smiled. Different apartments, across a city, he could sense a smile.

He was a genius profiler. His intuition about emotion was impeccable.

Or maybe she was just special.


	3. Chapter Two

**This one's pretty short, but I've been trying to write this part for a while and it hasn't turned out the way I'd like so I'm decided to do this in two parts. This is my first multi-chapter fic and I don't have a lot of practice. **

Scully paused before entering the office. Mulder was on the phone with someone, and she didn't want to interrupt if it was Phoebe. Then again, maybe she did.

"So…" he was saying into the phone as she entered. "I don't know when you're going to get a weekend off, but when I do I'll come see you, OK? … I meant what I said about that background check by the way… No, I'm serious!" he laughed. "No boyfriends unless they've been vetted through my division. I'll see you soon… Bye."

"That didn't sound like Phoebe." Scully remarked after he'd hung up the phone.

"Phoebe? That was my sister!"

"I didn't know you had a sister. Older or younger?" she asked thoughtfully.

"She's four years younger than me."

"So, the same age as me."

He smiled. "I never though of that. Yeah."

"What does she do?"

"She's a simultaneous interpreter. Works for the UN."

"In New York?"

"Yeah." he paused. "You're like her."

"I'm sure I would." Scully said, misunderstanding.

"No, no. Not _you'd like her_. You're like her."

She was silent for a moment. "Ok, I'll bite. How so?"

"You're both so… dedicated. Obsessed. It's aliens with you, with Samantha it's languages. When she was younger she'd tape of pieces of paper around the house with the German word for everything, or French or Spanish or whatever. Once I even let her tape the word _Fuchs_ to my forehead."

"i take it you were close as kids then." Scully said quietly.

"Nah. Not really. That was just a really good day. We fought a lot, stupid things. There were good days though." He looked up at her. "Were you? Close?"

"When we were really young, yes. Not as teenagers. It was the same… stupid fights. I'd take it all back now of course, if I could."

"Maybe one day you'll get the chance." He didn't ask if she thought she would. Either it was because he didn't want to know the answer, or he didn't think she did. "Uh Scully… Did you come down here for something?"

"Right." The moment was over. "I was going to take a look at the file for Phoebe's case."

"Look Scully, I'm doing this because Phoebe's my friend and I'm doing this because she hasn't given me much choice. This isn't my division, it's yours. You don't need to be any part of this."

"This case has _X-File_ written all over it, you're not getting rid of me that easily."

"While I appreciate the sentiment there's no need for you to be dragged into one of Phoebe's mind games."

"Mind games?"

"She knows I hate fire. I can't stand it. Ever since I was a kid I've had nightmares about it. This is her test. To see if I can handle it."

"Well, it looks like you might be needing some back up."

**To be continued…**

**I know that was short, the next bit will continue through the rest of Fire and start to show the beginning of this story's mythology. **


	4. Chapter Three

Mulder's Hotel Room

"You were scared." Scully was saying. "You froze up. It could have happened to anyone."

"But it didn't, it happened to me!" Mulder threw himself onto the bed in frustration. "There's a reason I hate this case so much. There's a reason Phoebe wanted me on it."

"Because you're afraid of fire."

"It's more than that. There's a reason. I was in my friends' house when it burned. The two of us shouldn't even be alive right now." Mulder shuddered, the memories all too vivid, broken glass, tentacles of smoke curling around him. "His... brother and sister were on the second floor. Someone set the house on fire. They didn't know who."

"Mulder you need rest."

"They didn't even have a chance. Their bodies were burnt to a crisp." He swallowed hard. "It was her ninth birthday, Scully. I was there to give her a present." He sat up abruptly. "Are the kids OK?" The words rushed from his mouth.

"Mulder..."

"The boys, Scully. Are they OK?"

"They're just shaken up. They'll be fine."

"Do they have any idea what happened?"

"You're friend's got people on it right now. Oh, by the way, she asked you to go see her as soon as you woke up." She haden't forgotten to mention it earlier, just hadn't wanted to.

"Then I'm going to change and head downstairs."

"You need more rest. If she cares enough to see you she'll come up here?"

"If she cares enough to see you?" Mulder repeated. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm just saying-"

"I know you're not wild about Phoebe- don't try and deny it, you've antagonized her since you met her - but you're not the only one on the X-files anymore. So far you've picked all of the cases and I'm deciding to investigate this one and I don't think that's at all out of line."

"That's not what I meant." Scully said quietly. "It's not about picking cases. I'm just worried she's not good for you."

"Are you going to apologize?"

"No."

"Well." Mulder picked up a pair of jeans off the floor and headed to the bathroom.

"Mulder."

He turned. "Yeah."

"The fire. I can take a look of you want, maybe find something local PD missed."

"No thanks. That's your coping mechanism, not mine."

The bathroom door slammed shut.

They made it through the rest of the investigation speaking to each other as little as possible, Mulder and Phoebe in the field while Scully was in the lab. Once L'Ively was brought to the hospital they parted ways immediately. The following morning, Scully entered the office to find mulder sitting in her chair.

Mulder broke the silence. "OK one of us has to write the report on this thing."

"It's my turn." Scully replied curtly.

"Right, but you weren't there for much of the later stages of the investigation."

"Because you weren't talking to me."

"It's not like that was a one sided thing. And I think it's in both our interest not to include that in our report."

"Fair point." Scully noticed a cassette tape on the desk. "Who's that from"

"Three guesses." Mulder gave her a wry smile.

"What's on it?" Scully asked, annoyed.

"No idea. Didn't listen to it."

"Are you going to?"

"Nope." With a graceful flick of the wrist it landed in the trash can.

Scully smiled despite herself.

"Don't try to act like you're not impressed with that." Mulder warned.

She walked around to the back of the desk. "Are you going to give me back my chair"

"No." he teased.

"Give me back my chair."

He spun around to face her and stood up. "If we split the report in half." He reasoned. "It'll get done quicker."

Scully pretended to think about this for a minute, then leaned in and whispered conspiratorially "Bet you I finish my half first."

He leaned in until their faces almost touched. "You're on."


End file.
